


serein

by NerumiH



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: BrOT4, Etro's Eyes, Gen, Memento mori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerumiH/pseuds/NerumiH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It will rain when they are gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	serein

**Author's Note:**

> This is my favourite stage of game production because we know enough to make headcanons off of but not be contradicted. Ay.
> 
> There better be some sad shit in this game oh man

He knows he cannot allow himself room for doubt.

It’s not a game, this magic – this curse – it’s not something to gamble, to cheat, to fold. He can’t misjudge shadows, nor can he give them forgiveness, and face the other way.

He sits in the dissonant, chill evening with the three of his friends. It’s a comfort to have them all with him and not have to wonder how they fare, but it comes with an asphyxiating fear, too.

There is a soft rain that mists over the camp. Dust, it dances in the smoke and capture of the campfire, turning yellow, white, black and hissing. Gladiolus, relaxed and shirt off, finds it a generous respite from the heat of the day – he’s always working hardest. Ignis has unfolded a metal canopy on the desk to protect the newspapers he reads, the information bleeding out of the corpse of the capital with dishonest pens…as if understanding what the enemy is telling the dead will help them. Prompto has retired from trying to cover his hair, to throwing his head off the back of the chair, rain a fine glow in the air but becoming corporeal as it dots his skin, his lips as he speaks to Gladio about the earlier fight.

Noctis slouches in his chair, eyelids dropping on pretense. Today was far too close – for all of them. A troop from Niflheim who seemed to know too much, carry too much weaponry. The four left with burns, gashes, nervous laughter so separated from the tension of the situation like it could carry away the person emitting it. To safety.

There is a vague stirring of rage in his stomach; their endangerment is his anxiety, the thing that keeps him watching them like some dog, aware of the glow off their skin. Ignis’s face blurs, concentrated, through the oily lamplight and the rain, Gladiolus’s skin shimmers like he’s a part of the storm, and Prompto’s pallor melts into the dew. His arm is slung off the back of the chair, awkwardly limp. His black clothing seems to remain solid against the shake of the air, while the rest of him pulls away, human-shaped –

He’s constantly worried for Prompto, more than he should be, his disorganization and recklessness horrifying instead of hilarious; he knows that Prompto is one of the few things he has, but also that Noctis is  _all_  of survival for him –

Enough. Noctis crushes shut his eyes, trying to calm down. The empty husk of the crystal link vibrates tiredly under his scalp, giving him a headache. Is he really to succumb to fear at this point? The deaths of his family behind him, his city obliterated, and it is while sitting in the calm of evening rain with three of his best friends, his trusted confidants, that he is to start being terrified of his own shadow?

The fear is anger, too, he knows. He lets the environment seep back into his vision. He forces himself to focus on Ignis, solidify his image in air that does not waver, but instead the man fades into a double image, drifting from where he sits. Gladiolus, too, the strength of the group and of himself, light catching on planes and arches of his stance that slip like petals and float away, pieces of him, hacked off. Spirits are all in one piece. Steam of breath floats from Prompto’s mouth, curling in the air, mingling with the eerie glow of his skin. He parts quietly, peeling away in a warmer, softer shell –  they all do, separating from their hosts gradually and unseen, the way dawn changes to morning. The rain engulfs their passage, arching higher and higher into the sky along with the smoke of the pyre.

It isn’t even surprising. Noctis lowers his head – he cannot rationalize himself out of fearing all their deaths. One day he will be eating with them and laughing or else lazing in the car or else understanding the brutal meaning of rawness between friends and they will brutally tear away from themselves, walk away, bodies still flushed and smiling. And no matter how much protecting he does, how much of this guard-dog watching, he will never be able to stop it. It’s going to happen.

He watches his own skin glow through the haze. Him, too. Eventually. Maybe after all of this, the throne staining him, or maybe tomorrow. Ignis won’t always be there to protect him, nor Gladio, Prom.

Gladiolus asks, “Hey, Noct?”

Prompto yawns. “He’s asleep. He can pass out freakin’ anywhere.”

He makes careful effort not to move. The glow separates from his skin like gossamer fabric. Maybe when he’s aged, maybe for one of them.

“Let him rest. God knows he needs it,” Ignis says.

“You always let him be so lazy! But if  _I_  try to get any, like, second of shut-eye, you flip out!”

“You’re simply not as precious, Prompto.”

“Oh, right – “

“Be quiet. You needn’t wake him.”

The three of them lapse into silence, and Noctis knows they are keeping watch over him more than watching each other – it bothers him, but the moral of it rings quietly in his head, bleaching out the cries of the crystal.

(Maybe not alone.)


End file.
